


One Year and Four Days

by 9091



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dark Dean Winchester, Episode: s08e01 We Need to Talk About Kevin, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:45:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9091/pseuds/9091
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Sam, I was gonna tell you that Hell and Purgatory weren't that different, that if I could survive one, I could survive the other.  But that's bullshit.  Less fire and more blood, I guess.  But Hell messed with my head and twisted me around, and I'm starting to think Purgatory fixed it.</em>
</p>
<p>Set during (with major spoilers for) 8x01's "We Need to Talk About Kevin."</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Year and Four Days

The first thing Dean did in Purgatory was put a small slice in his arm. 

If a man could bleed, he was alive, and if he could bleed... 

Reality baseline numero uno.  

He looked at all those shiny button eyes in the dark, pulling his sleeves down over the wound.

Maybe he wasn't here at all.  It could've all been a nightmare, or some kind of parallel timeline thing.  God knew he'd had his share of those.  Really, what kind of foolproof way was there to make sure he wasn't?  Might be a dream, might be another dimension, might be a really potent 'shroom for all the fuck he knew.  Any way it fell out, all Dean could assume was that he was alive and that Sam was alive somewhere up top.  Survival was the safest possible goal.

Besides, what was "dead" anyway?  A person in Heaven was dead to people back home, sure, but Heaven could be breached and a man could be pulled out.  Same as with Hell.  The afterlife could be torn open like a bag of chips if someone had the drive to do it.  Death was negotiable.  

So he looked back at the button eyes and shrugged.  Better to die on his feet, aware of what came next, than to get panicky and blindsided.

He had no wall where he could put his back.  No mountains, no boundaries, no cover.  No tactically superior position existed on the ground.  He found a tree with nothing in it (took a few tries) and climbed it.  Climbing trees was never his thing as a kid (nature was a bitch, why climb it?), but a few weeks later, he was a professional.  It didn't take that long to wrap his mind around it.  He'd been here before, already knew the tune:  _Everything wants to kill me.  There's no one to trust._  


Well, there was Cas. Somewhere in there.

_No torture, though_. Dean shrugged to himself.  _So there's that._  


A week later, he'd regret that assumption.

  


*

  


Dean couldn't quite explain, but he could  _feel_  when his name started being hissed around Purgatory.  

A lot of monsters didn't believe it at first, but Dean liked the way they formed his name in their strange voices.  More like an invocation than a name.  Like Dean was Keyser Soze.  Maybe he was more flattered by that than he should've been.  

They told stories he heard from up in the trees, about how he was a man who wasn't a man anymore, but something like them that couldn't die.  The legend grew into that of a man who was so consumed with hatred for monsters that he'd fought his way into Purgatory so he could kill monsters he'd already killed, like he was reliving grisly glory days.  Some thought maybe there weren't any monsters left on Earth, and Dean had gotten bored.  But they didn't say "Dean", they said "the elder of Campbell and Winchester", like he and Sam were the cursed, super-deadly offspring of some hunter power couple.  He liked that one the best.  

Soon, monsters came to find him.  Some of them succeeded.  They were all vaguely familiar in nagging ways -- a voice here, a mannerism there.  The ones that spoke would announce that Dean had killed them, with the year and date on earth when he'd done it, like Dean was going to lick his finger and turn a page in a book to confirm.  They argued that they deserved peace from him, even down here.  Was it not enough for him that they were being punished?  

Other monsters came after those, telling Dean that his family had killed them and he was to atone for the sin of his blood.  

He fought and paid for Sam's kills, for Dad's, for Mom's and his grandpa's.  He fought for the kills of unknown Campbells who were long-dead.  After awhile, he thought they might be making up some of the names.  They knew his family tree better than he did.

After he killed them all, visits were rare.  

After that, Dean was given a small amount of space, a thin silver of quiet.  He preferred it when they were attacking.

  


*

  


Fully-developed rugarus were, if not tasty, edible enough.  Dean supposed they were better if roasted on a spit, but setting a fire in this place was kinda like putting up a neon sign that said "Eat Dean."  Wait until he told Sam that.  Sam would bust a gut.  In his head, Dean wondered what it would be like if he kept a journal down there or something.

_Sammy, today I ate a rugaru.  That's irony, right?_

  


*

  


After a long time in, he saw Gordon.  Gordon had gone off the deep end some time ago.  Come to think of it, Gordon hadn't been a vamp for very long when they ganked him.  There was still a lot of man there.  

Dean tried to figure out how long Gordon had been down, to get an idea of how long it took to snap.  Time was hard to figure.

Gordon looked right at Dean and nothing happened. 

_Sammy, I ran into Gordon today.  He didn't know me.  He was walking around talking about himself in the third person like Kanye.  It was hilarious._

  


*

  


Maybe it was seeing Gordon that did it.  

Dean started giving himself a reality check every day, about how he was in Purgatory, about how many days he thought it had been.  Sometimes he threw the words to Led Zeppelin songs in there.  Sometimes he reminded himself of something that happened when they were kids, a story that only mattered to him, about the time he'd spent all the emergency phone quarters on a banana milkshake for Sam, because Sam had a toothache that they couldn't afford to fix.  The way Sam looked at him, like it was the best milkshake in the world, like Dean had it all figured out.  These monsters didn't know that.  He couldn't let them see it. 

"Hey," something said from beneath him in genuine surprise.  It was a werewolf, mouthful of daggers, bloody-faced, colorless eyes.  "Were you singing Led Zeppelin?"

He didn't answer, didn't know he'd been talking out loud, much less singing.

"I saw them, you know.  At the Pontiac Silverdome.  In Michigan?  1977 your time.  Haven't thought about that in years!"

Dean jumped down quicker than the thing could react.  Killed it fast.  It'd been days since he killed anything, and he had just given away his location, just like that.

_Sam, I tried to maintain sanity today by perching in a tree and singing to myself, thinking about the good old days.  Now that I've written it down like that, I'm not sure why I thought it would work._

  


*

  


When he woke up one morning, Cas was sitting on the knotted branches below him.  He had dirt pressed into one side of his face like he'd just woken up on the ground.  That stupid coat flapped around him, the worst possible camouflage.  Anyone else would've made a hammock out of the damn thing by now, but not Cas.

Dean blinked at him, not startled.  "What?"

"If I make it through this, I'll be the highest of the angels."

"Okay." 

"It's all been a test," Cas explained, his voice as monotonous and casual as ever.  "Don't you understand?  Since day one, it's been a test.  Starting with you and ending with this."

Dean really didn't know what he was supposed to say.  If he spoke out of turn, it might be days or weeks until Cas popped up again.

"I'm not trying to complain," Cas added, as if Dean had argued.  "God's tests can span centuries.  Many angels before me were tested much more harshly, for so much longer.  I see that now and I'm going to succeed."

The silence grew to the point that Dean wasn't sure Cas knew he was still there.  "It's important to have a goal."

The way Cas looked at him now had made Dean flinch once upon a time.  "I thought it was an act at first, you down here.  Now I'm not sure you're going to make it."

"I'm making it down here enough for everybody."

"I'm not sure you're going to make it back on Earth."

When he looked again, Cas was on the ground.  Dean yawned and stretched a little.  "Good pep talk."

A changling had wandered up to Dean's tree.

Cas looked down at it, head tilting.  "You were once in my stomach."

It wasn't a taunt, just a point Cas felt worth mentioning.  

The changling looked up at Cas for a long time, all hollow pits for eyes and maggoty little teeth.  It glanced toward Dean and walked backwards into the shadows.

Dean rolled his eyes. "If you keep tellin' 'em that, you're not gonna make any friends."

When he looked again, Cas was gone.

_Sam, today an angel who once tried to eat this place told me I was unhinged.  I don't know if that's sad or crazy.  Not sure I want out.  Not sure it's a good idea anymore._

In his head, he scratched that bit out and blackened it until he couldn't make out the letters.

  


*

  


"Pure?"  Benny drawled out.  

"Uncomplicated."  Dean took the lead, moving quickly and quietly.  He'd seen a rugaru here a few hours before and his stomach had started to knot with hunger.

_Sam, today I burned away everything I didn't need._

He didn't wonder about something's motives or intentions.  He just killed it.

There was no love to preserve.  There was no one besides himself to protect.  Nothing down here said one thing and did another.  Every soul in Purgatory had the same agenda, and the ways they pushed those agendas were predictable.  He didn't have to wonder if he was doing the right thing, or if he was good enough.  If he lived he was good enough.  If he died, it didn't matter.  The end wasn't in sight.  Help wasn't on the way.

He didn't really sleep anymore, his breathing just slowed.  He barely ate, carved down to nothing but bone and muscle.  After a kill, he was a mess of browning blood and dirt that made him look like he was part of the trees, part of the ground.  He breathed the dirt, he went still and he watched.  To relax was to die.  The rules were simple.

"Wonder what'll happen when we clean this place out," Benny wondered out loud.  

"Then I'll have to kill you," Dean said.

After a few seconds, Benny laughed.  Dean didn't.  

  


*

  


Something that sounded like screaming woke him up.

When Dean got his bearings, he was on the floor, holding a gun on the teenage girl who was there to clean the motel room. 

He'd fallen asleep on the floor because the bed felt weird and too soft.  He must not have hung the sign on the door. 

While she ran to get help, Dean grabbed his bag.  He changed from one shirt into another and slowly walked in her direction, passing her.  The clean shirt felt scratchy against scrub-reddened skin.  He was on the street now, the sun at his back.  He walked ten miles through dusty residential areas, without a person in sight, before his breathing returned to normal.  

When the truck slowed to offer him a lift, Dean had figured out three ways to kill the man driving it before the passenger door was even opened.  


He could take the driver.  He'd driven a truck like this once.  In fact, this wouldn't be a bad truck to have if he took it. 

"Did you hear me, son?"

Dean collected his bearings again.  Reality check: Inside a truck in Louisiana, license plate KJL276, with a man who had been a trained soldier maybe 20 years before, but was now creaky and soft.

"Sorry, mind was elsewhere."

"My name's Jerry.  What's yours?"

For a horrifying moment, Dean forgot his name.  When it came out, it sounded like a bunch of jagged syllables that didn't go together.

Dean wondered what Sam was like now, after this year alone.  Maybe he'd been fired into glass by all this, killing things left and right, making his own little Purgatory on earth.  He'd call him tomorrow after he dug up Benny.  They'd spend a day or so getting caught up, plot what job to pull next and hit the road right away.

At just the thought of a hunt, Dean relaxed into the truck's seat, falling into a light sleep.


End file.
